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Friday, 13 January 2012

okay, look. i don't expect perfection in writing online. most writing online these days is blogging by amateurs who have not made their living writing and editing, and i can forgive a lot of errors there (not to say that they don't still bug the shit out of me, but you know: i can hold my tongue).

but when articles written by professional journalists, edited by professional editors, and published by major publishers contain multiple glaring silly errors, i get a little stabbity.

tonight, we are watching our usual first round of news, the pbs newshour. there was a story that mentioned the office of the u.s. trade representative (USTR), and i worked there back in the mid-1990s, so i was curious and googled USTR and limited results to the past 24 hours. and i found a story on business week, published by bloomberg. and i couldn't even assess the reporting because my eye was twitching so much from the grade school–level errors. so i downloaded adobe reader, pdf'd the article, and marked the errors. (here, if you're curious.) because yes, that is what i have going on on a friday night. that's just how i roll, yo.

Thursday, 19 May 2011

oh, so many. i have always wished i could play guitar, mandolin, dulcimer, banjo...lots of instruments but especially those.

so. banjo. in honor of the fact that i am missing steve martin's tour date in durham, n.c., tomorrow night (damn you, hard-to-get doctor's appointments!), i'll focus on some of his latest. i wish i could play banjo like he does. check out this bit of mastery.

guitar and blues, too. lordy, i wish i could belt it like susan tedeschi.

and generally, mandolin

and dulcimer

THAT is beautiful.

oh! i almost forgot (duh) the ukelele. i kind of developed an instant crush on this jake guy.

Wednesday, 18 May 2011

holy crap. i don't think there are any songs i can play on an instrument any more. once upon a time, i could play lots of pretty things on a piano, but i haven't touched a piano in YEARS. decades since i played in earnest and practiced.

when i did play, my favorite things to play were bach preludes. like this one

or his minuets, like this one

or airs, like this one

just loved playing bach. i won a bach competition when i was seven or eight years old, and i was completely hooked after that. <3

Monday, 16 May 2011

okay, let's get one thing out of the way: if i'm able to play a song at my funeral, stop the funeral. I AM NOT DEAD YET.

whew.

now, then. if we're sure i'm dead, and you do have a funeral for me (i don't particularly want one, but i know that these things are for the survivors and not the deceased), there is one song i want played.

i love this song. jane's addiction did a great cover of it on the "deadicated" album. if you're wondering why i'd want it played at my funeral, here are the lyrics:

if my words did glow with the gold of sunshine and my tunes were played on the harp unstrung, would you hear my voice come through the music? would you hold it near as it were your own?

it's a hand-me-down. the thoughts are broken. perhaps they're better left unsung. i don't know, don't really care. let there be songs to fill the air.

ripple in still water when there is no pebble tossed nor wind to blow.

reach out your hand if your cup be empty. if your cup is full, may it be again. let it be known: there is a fountain that was not made by the hands of men.

there is a road, no simple highway, between the dawn and the dark of night, and, if you go, no one may follow. that path is for your steps alone.

ripple in still water when there is no pebble tossed nor wind to blow.

you who choose to lead must follow, but, if you fall, you fall alone. if you should stand, then who's to guide you? if i knew the way, i would take you home.

well. i'm already married (yay!), so i already had people play the songs i wanted played (double yay!). mark and sharlotte played "simple gifts," as i've already noted during this series, as my processional. i lovedlovedloved it. i think i mentioned that, too.

there was no other music during the wedding, as is typical of an unprogrammed quaker meeting for worship, not until the end. i asked the dj to play "great day" (again with the eddie from ohio) when our convener, jen, gave the signal to end the ceremony. nobody could hear it over all the happy chatter as people rose from their seats, but i knew it was playing in the ballroom as we opened up the french doors from the living room where the ceremony had been. i found an mp3 download of that, too (triple yay!). (warning, the mp3 sample doesn't start in a great place and is therefore a little jarring or startling at first. stick with it.)

shit. i'm behind! i didn't post a list for saturday OR sunday, and of course i haven't posted one yet today. so. here's catching up.

probably my favorite song to listen to when i'm sad is oh my brother by eddie from ohio. this is one of those times that i'm pissed that efo has taken down all the online video of them performing, because the song is just gorgeous. you think you MUST have actual heartstrings, because you can feel them being pulled. hard. i did find an amazon mp3 download, though, and you can totally see why i love it so very much if you go there and play the preview. i get goosebumps. jesus it makes me cry even when i'm not sad.

i discovered this song via jen, but it became something i turned to in hard times when my friend karen and her husband joe and all of their friends and family were fighting joe's battle with acute myeloid leukemia, which we eventually lost. god, i hate cancer. especially leukemia. fucker.

Sunday, 15 May 2011

so, apparently i started some kind of growth spurt recently. not physically, fortunately (see below re weight watchers), but mentally or emotionally or something. all of a sudden, i'm all taking care of myself and stuff.

i joined weight watchers a little more than a week ago because i can't stand being so unhealthy. the new program is pretty awesome, especially with the online tools. it's really well done. the food part of it is all about fat, fiber, carbs, and protein (which all factor together to yield a point value for each food or drink); the rest is reshaping your thinking and getting more active. all of these are things with which i need help, so it's been good for me thus far. i lost six pounds in this first week (which would be a lot more awesome if i hadn't GAINED almost five pounds at maryland sheep and wool just before logging my initial weight, but still: satisfactory). mainly it's been nice just being more sensible and learning about healthy eating in a new way, and i haven't felt deprived because they're very generous with the points.

then yesterday i had some much-needed productivity time and girl time, during which i ran one million errands and monica and i played at the waterfront. i started the morning (after taking andrew to catch the airport shuttle for an overnight trip to visit friends) at lowe's, where i bought a beautiful (and practical!) steam cleaner for floors. i've been wanting one of these for years, and sort of longing for one for a few months, thinking that it would help clean the floor in the craft/cats' room (where, sadly, at least one of them has taken to peeing). so yesterday while leisurely browsing at lowe's, i came upon the selection of floor-cleaning machines and saw this one. it's exactly what i wanted AND in a sleek midcentury-looking design AND (guilty!) grey-blue. how could i walk away? it was like $70, and i am completely smitten. i used it yesterday on said floor and was very pleased with my purchase #smug.

so. that's all pretty grown-up, right? eating more healthily? cleaning? i know! the lowe's trip also included three big clear plastic totes to use as new litter boxes for the three new types of litter i also purchased yesterday; i've been advised that the peeing outside the box might be because the cats dislike the automated litter box or (more likely) that the shape or size of the box isn't what they want. so i bought a 66-quart bin and two 26-quart bins (again, on the advice of some cat lovers), plus some feline pine, some world's best cat litter, and some yesterday's news. the feline pine seems, so far, to be less easy to keep clean (because there's no clumping) than the world's best, but i haven't set up the one with the yesterday's news stuff yet. if you're really interested in following this whole experiment, you'll have to let me know. as any cat person knows, there are myriad details and nuances to track. it's exhausting being a cat, i'm sure, because it sure as hell is exhausting owning one.

okay. so that was the cat portion of the outing. lowe's and petco. (petco, btw, had a pitifully small selection of litters. aisles and aisles of food [input] but less than one aisle of litter [for output]. and most of what was there was clumping clay litters, which i'd like to avoid for environmental reasons.) also at petco: a LOT of dogs for the vaccination clinic. one poor four-month-old german shepherd puppy had an explosive bit of output while waiting in the too-long-for-puppies line. he was beautiful but produced remarkably potent output. poor guy.

anyway. then i headed to my favorite part of the waterfront: target. target has everything. and pretty. plus a soda fountain at the entry so i could sip on icy ginger ale the whole time (i know: lots of ww points) i shopped. but i found lots of useful things, and it's where monica caught up with me after her morning stuff.

but the highlight of the day came after target: makeup time at the clinique counter at macy's. i'd seen some emailer about macy's and clinique doing a promo where you come in and get a color consult and they give you a present. i like presents, and i love clinique, so i forwarded the email to monica a few weeks back, and we had been trying to find a day to go be girly ever since. yesterday was that day.

i lucked out with the uberprofessional and knowledgeable michele (one l--she's sophisticated). she started with a whole skin-care consult before moving on to color, and i discovered that i have a lot of redness that i never ever notice. very red nose and cheeks. i know that i blow my nose a lot (allergies? i have no idea. but we go through tissues in this house like crazy--and i carry a hanky everywhere), which probably stresses the skin some. and i'm very hard on that area when i'm sleeping, again because of congestion. so burst blood vessels and so redness.

so she did an awesome job, and i bought a bunch of skin-care products and makeup. who knew that moss-green eyeliner might look good on me? (michele did.) and who knew that there was a pore-minimizing serum that could help me with the grand canyons on my nose? (michele did.) or a redness-reducing foundation that i could apply just to the red areas and not even worry about foundation on the rest of my face? (michele did.) she hooked me up with some great stuff.

the catch: she asked whether i would come in in two weeks for a checkup. an excuse to go back and be girly again for an hour? you bet! but this means that i actually have to *do* the whole three-step plus moisturizer plus eye cream plus pore-reducing serum thing for two weeks twice a day so that my checkup is honest. (god forbid one should lie to the clinique consultant.) so i did it last night and again this morning, LIKE A GROWN-UP. (most days i'm doing great if i wash my face at all, frankly.)

so, in the interest of science, here's me last night a few hours after the great makeover of 2011.

(urgh, why is it uploading sideways and how do i fix that?)

and here is me this morning just after doing the second official repeat of the regimen.

who's a pretty girl? yikes. anyway, this shows you some of the redness, even though the ott-lite washes out most of it. but maybe it will be entertaining to see how things progress. or maybe not. either way. it's a blog.